Happening Now: Coffee Harvest With Dallis Bros. Coffee at Octavio Coffee's Proprietary Farm in Sao Paulo, Brazil
(PRWEB) August 03, 2011
Long before the name of the roaster became a defining trademark of coffee branding, Dallis Bros. Coffee was in the business of bringing the finest, freshest roasted coffee to New Yorkers. Through the years, Dallis remained true to its history, while also exploring and developing the best knowledge, practices and technology in the coffee world. Beginning in 1913 with horse-drawn wagons, the Dallis brothers went door-to-door in Queens and Brooklyn selling five-pound bags of their coffee.
Today, Dallis provides customized, roasted-to-order coffee (single origin and proprietary blends) to many of the finest cafs and restaurants in New York today including Berkli Parc, Craftbar, Gramercy Tavern, Root Hill and Union Square Caf.
In 2007, the dream of having a direct and sustainable connection to the source became a reality, when Octavio Coffee, a Brazilian farm and coffee company, acquired Dallis Bros. The two formed a partnership that allowed the Queens-based roasting company to become intimately involved in every step of production from farm to cup. The team at Dallis Bros. is driven by their passion for quality coffee and their knowledge of coffee origins. Coffee Director Byron Holcomb, VP John Moore, CEO Marcelo Crescente work closely with the coffee farm in Pedgregulho, Brazil, Fazenda Nossa Senhora Aparecida, cupping through all the varietals each harvest, as well as taking extreme care in the roasting process back in New York.
Edgard Bressani, CEO of the Division of Agriculture of Octavio Coffee, and his team who manage the farm, have the same enthusiasm for quality, rigorous attention to detail, as the team at Dallis Bros. The farm workers, pickers, technicians and other staff, are all motivated to use extreme carewhether handpicking or using the latest sorting technologyto assure that no defects enter the coffee from the soil to the roasted bean.
Like Dallis Bros., Octavio Coffee has a venerable history as a family-owned business. In 1890, Italian-native Giusepe Qurcia and his son Vicente immigrated to Brazil and began cultivating coffee. In the 1940s, Vicentes son, Octavio, building on the family expertise, decided to grow coffee in the Alta Mogiana, Pedregulho region, in the state of So Paulo, an area with all the right stuff (good soil and high altitude) for growing delicious coffeesweet and well-balanced.
Today, Octavio has 6 different estates in Alta Mogiana Region, a total 12,355 acres, and 4 million coffee trees. The farm currently has 2,400-2,500 acres in coffee production, which translates into about 34,000 120 lb. sacks of raw, green beans.
Standing atop a hill, one can look out over a green ocean of coffee trees that extends as far as the eye can see. The lush plants bear the fruit of the woody, perennial evergreen, Coffea arabica. To the visitor who has never seen how coffee grows, the fields are reminiscent of a vineyard, the clusters of coffee cherries, in varying colors ranging from green-red, to bright red or bright yellow, depending on the cultivar, remind one of clusters of grapes.
Like grape vines, the terroir (the soil, the temperature, the altitude, the location, the environment) of the coffee plant, all influence the final product that ends up on your table, in your glass or in your cup. But unlike wine, the raw material that eventually metamorphoses into a beverage is drawn from the seed hidden inside the coffee cherryan extra step away from the fruity pulp that surrounds itthan a grape is from juice or wine. The final product, in the case of coffee, derives its qualities, not from the fruit on the tree, but from that seed, which must be picked, sorted, processed, dried, de-pulped, de-husked, and roasted before it eventually becomes the bean we recognize as coffee.
As an agricultural crop, coffee requires a considerable investment of time, effort and money. It takes 3-5 years before the trees are commercially viable. During the dry season, the self-pollinating coffee plants are encouraged to flower. The white coffee flowers open and smell phenomenal for a day, but its the rainfall thats required for the flowers to develop into fruit, a life cycle that takes from 6-11 months. Without rain, Brazilian coffee farmers risk losing their crops.
At each step, from the planting of various varietals of Arabica, to the harvest that lasts from May to July, as coffee cherries ripening at different rates on the same plant, are picked by hand or by sophisticated picking machines that can be calibrated to pick only the ripe fruit, to carefully monitoring and turning the natural (pulp-covered) beans on asphalt drying patios to prevent fermentation, to removing the outer dry husk, to properly storing, packaging and shipping the beansat each stage of the process, whether clearing the leaves and twigs from the cherries by tossing them up in the air and letting the wind take them or sorting by machine, there is the potential to make or break what nature produced.
Further connecting with the coffee-consuming public, Octavio Cafnamed after Vicentes sonis known as the best caf in So Paulo, a city with a vibrant caf culture. The coffee bar and restaurant embodies all the best qualities of the farm, the beans, processing, roasting and service, with delicious results in every cup of coffee from espresso to cappuccino as well as coffee drinks that are unique to So Paulo and Octavio Cafe. (Recipes available on request.)
In the U.S., consumers can experience the benefits of the attention to detail that Octavio and Dallis Bros. follow along the trail of quality coffee from seed to cup, from So Paulo to New York. In each bag of coffee from Fazenda Nossa Senhora Aparacida, Dallis Bros. represents the farms hard work, from its social and environmental efforts to its consistently delicious coffees. For each new harvest, representatives from Dallis visit the farm, and taste through a series of cuppings, each of the numerous lots that are just out of the fields.
Dallis Bros. Coffee receives rested (reposado) raw green beans from the farm in Brazil and roasts them to just the right degree, to bring out the best in the beans. Working with a 1950s vintage Probat, ideal for perfecting the roast, the excellent roasters at Dallis rely on their experience, sense of smell, visual cues, as well as computerized fine-tuning, to determine the perfect roast for the beans, and to achieve consistent quality.
All of this translates onto the following label information about this single origin coffee:
FARM (FAZENDA): Nossa Senhora Aparecida
HARVEST SEASON: May-July
GROWING REGION: Pedregulho in Alta Mogiana, Brazil
VARIETAL(S): Yellow Bourbon, Yellow Catua, Obat
ALTITUDE: 3,000 feet
PROCESSING: A blend of pulp natural processed and natural processed cherries
CUP: Smooth balanced sweetness with soft buzzing acidity, hints of cinnamon and dates
This coffee lot provides a deliciously sweet, smooth cup laden with notes of dates, nougat, almond butter, milk chocolate, and roasted hazelnuts.
Those interested in learning more about Dallis Bros. and the farm in Brazil can visit their New York coffee roasting plant for a tour, open to the public on the first Saturday of the month (reservations required). For additional information about the tours or to purchase coffee, please visit http://www.dallisbroscoffee.com.
